New: TerrainMesh plugin (in alpha/beta)

Happy New Year!
Haven’t had a chance to try it out on something more complex, but so far so good on mac!!!

Thanks a million, @Holo, epic as always!

I’m a bit dumb… where can I download the new version?

:slight_smile:

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By request I was asked to upload it here too, so here it is:

v0.32 expires 31.12.2022
TerrainMesh.rhi (18.7 KB)

For those of you who download it here, please tell me why you prefer that instead of using the package manager. I would like to hear your opinions, and PLEASE give me all kinds of feedback on the plugin. Be harsh, wish, comment noob issues and advanced issues alike. I’m thick skinned so don’t worry, you won’t be banned and I won’t be discouraged :wink:

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One reason I can think of is that the user might be using Rhino offline so Rhino itself doesn’t have internet access. A common technique in this case is to use a separate online computer for downloads which are then transferred to the offline computer by various methods that don’t involve the internet.

In my case, this reason is enough to prefer manual installation.

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Thanks for the input!
For your information once it was published through YAK so it is visible in the package manager I could easily add a page in Food4Rhino so it is available for download there:

Publishing through Yak isn’t a very smooth process either, but I think it can develop nicely once the front end (user side) and the back end (publisher side) gets better UI.
(having a small interface so we don’t have to run CMD and type strings like in good old MS DOS would be a nice upgrade)

The big plus of installing through the package manager is that it’s easy for users to upgrade to the latest and greatest version. (But Rhino still needs too boot some times for the changes to take place, which is a bit odd imo)

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I would recommend against shipping an rhi and just use yak. It’s only going to cause problems. There are plenty of bugs on my list to try and figure out which plug-in wins (the one installed with rhi or the one installed with the package manager). We have ways to allow offline installation of yak files. @will can help point out how this is done.

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OK, that’s interesting Steve.
I see that when I click on Install on Food4Rhino it want’s to install through Rhino 7, so no downloads there in other words.

I would consider RHI as a deprecated technology and should only be employed if you have to support Rhino 6. If there is something that RHI does that YAK doesn’t support, we should fix this for yak.

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Since we are a bit offtopic now, about deploying plugins. Is it possible to make some button on food4rhino to run and open package manager within Rhino? I lt may sound weird from technical point of view but I am thinking now about the idea where food4rhino and package manager would be somehow correlated and help each other.

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What a nice surprise, over 100 downloads on food4 rhino already! Hope you all like it!

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I have found it is already existing from some time. Sory for misinformation.

Hi everybody!
We just reached 300 installs and I would like to hear your experiences, are there anything you need fixed or refined?

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Hello! Thanks for the plugin, Holo! Put it to good use on a 1.2mio point cloud:

However, some edges appear to be… open?
image

That’s where Quadrangulate fails:
image

Maybe the plugin could optionally create quad meshes already?
I’m aware that quad meshing does not make much sense on randomly distributed points, or with curves (In this case, the points were arranged in a 1x1m raster. )
Any ideas?
Thanks!

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Thanks for the feedback!
Try to weld at 180 degrees first, TerrainMesh has 22.5 degrees as welding limit.

Hope that helps.

That did the trick! Welding, of course…
image
Perfect quads.
Thanks a lot!

Ah, yes, something else: you think it’s possible to multi-thread the algorithm?

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I have to think about that one, I might be able to speed up some error preventing tasks, but the actual meshing relies on other libraries. But I intend to add a % progress indicator though, so the wait isn’t in the dark. How long did it take to process your pointcloud?

Not really, because quad meshing would require resampling of the mesh at the quad points, thus deviating from the input data. BUT I have a quad resampler laying around somewhere… :slight_smile: I could add it as a separate tool though. What do you consider the benefits of having a strict quad grid instead of more accurate tris?

The quad mesh only made sense in THIS case, because the points were already arranged in a perfect raster. Since it’s so easy to convert the terrain mesh to quads - never mind adding this as a feature.

That would be great!

It takes a few seconds until the tolerance window pops up. Then it’s even shorter until the command says ‘mesh generated’.
However, other than at my work computer, Rhino here went into ‘blue ring’ mode after that, and remains unresponsive. I let it run more than 30min. Bug maybe?
Thanks!